Recent News on Biotechnology
Biotech Clusters in India
The Indian biotechnology industry has shown rapid growth due to combination of factors such as progressive government policies, entrepreneurial drive, and world class scientific environment.
In terms of planned growth, biotech parks like the Shapoorji Pallonji Biotech Park, Hyderabad; ICICI knowledge Park, Hyderabad; International Biotech Park, Pune have been instrumental in fulfilling the infrastructure requirements of the rapidly growing Indian biotech industry
To quote from the recent BioSpectrum-ABLE Survey, as of June 2008, "Biotech companies from the bioclusters in West and South generated revenues in excess of $1 billion in 2007-08. Maharashtra emerged as the leading state with $900 million in revenues, while Bangalore was the top biotech city contributing $550 million in sales during 2007-08.
Top Clusters
- The biotech companies in the western cluster, comprising the states of Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa, generated Rs. 4,452.37 crore in revenues.
- The Southern biocluster covering Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, dnd Tamil Nadu was close behind West with biotech revenues of Rs. 4,368.63 crore.
- The Northern cluster accounted for 14 percent share of the total biotech revenues of Rs.10,274 crore generated in 2007.08.
Andhra Pradesh Biotech Cluster
Andhra Pradesh initiated India's first biotech cluster in Hyderabad, the Genome Valley, setting the stage for biotech innovation and economic growth. The Genome valley encompasses established biotech parks the Shapooji Pallonji Biotech Park and ICICI Knowledge Park.
Shapoorji Pallonji Biotech Park
The Shapoorji Pallonji Biotech Park houses a mix of companies involved in high-end research in biotechnology and nanotechnology, manufactures of biopharmaceuticals and molecular diagnostic kits.
ICICI Knowledge Park
Launched by ICICI Bank Ltd in partnership with the Government of Andhra Pradesh, the ICICI Knowledge Park is committed to facilitating business-driven research and development.
Karnataka Biotech Cluster
Karnataka has strong tradition of promoting education, science and technology. With several academic and research Institute such as Indian Institute of Science (IISc), National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) the stage was well set for pioneering ideas in the emerging areas of sciences. One of the new ideas was biotechnology, which as an industry started taking shape in Bangalore in the late 1970's, with Biocon being an early player. Today, Karnattaka accounts for 40% of the Biotech firms in India and 40% of the exports. About 175 companies in this cluster have together clocked total annual sales of over Rs. 1400 crores.
Nanotechnology in the Food Chain? Nanomaterials Tested Not Concentrating In Higher Level Organisms.
The same properties that make engineered nanoparticles attractive for numerous applications--biological and environmental stability, small size, solubility in aqueous solutions and lack of toxicity to whole organisms--also raise concerns about their long-term impact on the environment. NIST researchers wanted to determine if nanoparticles could be passed up a model food chain and if so, did the transfer lead to a significant amount of bioaccumulation (the increase in concentration of a substance in an organism over time) and biomagnification (the progressive buildup of a substance in a predator organism after ingesting contaminated prey).
In their study, the NIST team investigated the dietary accumulation, elimination and toxicity of two types of fluorescent quantum dots using a simple, laboratory-based food chain with two microscopic aquatic organisms--Tetrahymena pyriformis, a single-celled ciliate protozoan, and the rotifer Brachionus calyciflorus that preys on it. The process of a material crossing different levels of a food chain from prey to predator is called "trophic transfer."
Quantum dots are nanoparticles engineered to fluoresce strongly at specific wavelengths. They are being studied for a variety of uses including easily detectable tags for medical diagnostics and therapies. Their fluorescence was used to detect the presence of quantum dots in the two microorganisms.
The researchers found that both types of quantum dots were taken in readily by T. pyriformis and that they maintained their fluorescence even after the quantum dot-containing ciliates were ingested by the higher trophic level rotifers. This observation helped establish that the quantum dots were transferred across the food chain as intact nanoparticles and that dietary intake is one way that transfer can occur. The researchers noted that, "Some care should be taken, however, when extrapolating our laboratory-derived results to the natural environment."
"Our findings showed that although trophic transfer of quantum dots did take place in this simple food chain, they did not accumulate in the higher of the two organisms," says lead author David Holbrook. "While this suggests that quantum dots may not pose a significant risk of accumulating in aquatic invertebrate food chains in nature, additional research beyond simple laboratory experiments and a more exact means of quantifying transferred nanoparticles in environmental systems are needed to be certain."
(Science Daily Jun. 1, 2008)
Biofuels: Fungus Use Improves Corn-to-ethanol Process
"The process could change ethanol production in dry-grind plants so much that energy costs can be reduced by as much as one-third," said Hans van Leeuwen, an Iowa State professor of civil, construction and environmental engineering and the leader of the research project.
Van Leeuwen and the other researchers developing the technology -- Anthony L. Pometto III, a professor of food science and human nutrition; Mary Rasmussen, a graduate student in environmental engineering and biorenewable resources and technology; and Samir Khanal, a former Iowa State research assistant professor who's now an assistant professor of molecular biosciences and bioengineering at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa -- recently won the 2008 Grand Prize for University Research from the American Academy of Environmental Engineers for the project.
"Those chosen for prizes by an independent panel of distinguished experts address the broad range of modern challenges inherent in providing life-nurturing services for humans and protection of the environment," according to a statement from the academy. "... Their innovations and performance illustrate the essential role of environmental engineers in providing a healthy planet."
The Iowa State project is focused on using fungi to clean up and improve the dry-grind ethanol production process. That process grinds corn kernels and adds water and enzymes. The enzymes break the starches into sugars. The sugars are fermented with yeasts to produce ethanol.
The fuel is recovered by distillation, but there are about six gallons of leftovers for every gallon of fuel that's produced. Those leftovers, known as stillage, contain solids and other organic material. Most of the solids are removed by centrifugation and dried into distillers dried grains that are sold as livestock feed, primarily for cattle.
(Science Daily, May 30, 2008)
World Food Programme head says biofuels affecting food supply
UN World Food Programme (EFP) head Josette Sheeran has warned that European Union countries needed to look more carefully at the effect that biofuels were having on food prices.
Sheeran warned the European Parliament that soaring energy and grain prices, the effects of climate change and demand for biofuels were affecting the World Food Programme's ability to deliver food aid to developing countries.
According to Sheeran, global food reserves were at their lowest level in 30 years, and the shift to biofuels production is fueling the problem by diverting lands out of the food chain.
While biofuels have been promoted by some as an answer to global warming by reducing carbin emissions, two large studies published recently have shown that they tend to cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels.
(Green Clippings news, March 7, 2008)
CO2-choked Mumbai rail bids for Carbon Credits
Mumbai’s suburban railway network may earn some brownie points in its efforts to overhaul the system to make it energy-efficient and travel-friendly. New braking and duct systems have been introduced in some coaches. But grey areas remain.
“Every year we buy power worth Rs 300 crore to run the suburban railways. Late last year, we introduced new trains with regenerative braking system. It involves a machine that supplies electrical energy back to the overhead power lines, used by other trains in the same service line. We estimate 35 per cent of energy will be saved,” says P C Sehgal, managing director, Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation Ltd (mrvc).
The energy saving will get translated to saving Rs 100 crore annually—250 million less units of energy produced (one unit costs Rs 4 approximately).
“Our project will save almost 0.25 million tonnes of co2,” Sehgal says.
mrvc is the nodal agency implementing railway projects in Greater Mumbai under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project, funded by the centre, the state government and the World Bank. mrvc has also become the first railway agency to submit a project idea note to the clean development mechanism executive board at Bonn in Germany, demanding issuance of certified emission reductions. The corporation is now waiting for the verification process to complete so that certified emission reductions are granted and can be traded.
(Down to earth, June 2, 2008)
Whizkid makes plastic biodegradable
It's pretty much common knowledge that plastic bags take 1000 years to decompose, if they do at all, but that fact just wasn't good enough for 16-year-old Daniel Burd. He's found a way to make plastic bags decompose in about three months by his estimation.
The Waterloo, Ontario, high school junior figured that something must make plastic degrade, even if it does take millennia, and that something was probably bacteria.
According to a report in the Waterloo Record, Burd mixed landfill dirt with yeast and tap water, then added ground plastic and let it stew. The plastic indeed decomposed more quickly than it would in nature; after experimenting with different temperatures and configurations, Burd isolated the microbial munchers. One came from the bacterial genus Pseudomonas, and the other from the genus Sphingomonas.
He was able to degrade 43% of some plastic within six weeks.
Burd says this should be easy on an industrial scale: all that's needed is a fermenter, a growth medium and plastic, and the bacteria themselves provide most of the energy by producing heat as they eat. The only waste is water and a bit of carbon dioxide.
The inputs are cheap, maintaining the required temperature takes little energy because microbes produce heat as they work, and the only outputs are water and tiny levels of carbon dioxide—each microbe produces only 0.01 per cent of its own infinitesimal weight in carbon dioxide, said Burd.
The young student's accomplishment has not gone unnoticed. He won the top prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Ottawa. This prize is prestigious as well as tangible. He received $10,000 as well as a $20,000 scholarship.Burd, a Grade 11 student at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, got the idea for his project from everyday life. "Almost every week I have to do chores and when I open the closet door, I have this avalanche of plastic bags falling on top of me," he said. "One day, I got tired of it and I wanted to know what other people are doing with these plastic bags."
The answer: not much. So he decided to do something himself. A researcher in Ireland has uncovered the capability of pseudomonas to decompose polystyrene, but as far as Burd and his teacher Mark Menhennet know—and they've looked—Burd's research on polyethylene plastic bags is a first.
To see if his process would work on a larger scale, he tried it with five or six whole bags in a bucket with the bacterial culture. That worked too.
"This is a huge, huge step forward... We're using nature to solve a man-made problem." Burd would like to take his project further and see it in use.
(The Times of India, May 25, 2008)
Pune farmers ignore bio-villages
Though the concept of bio-villages is fast gaining popularity in the state, farmers in Pune district are still not keen on it. Continuous efforts of city-based Maharashtra Organic Farming Federation (MOFF), led by Vikram Boke, to run the bio-village project in Pune has received a cold response.
For the last two years, MOFF has campaigned extensively for bio-villages, which are essentially dedicated to organic agriculture. The federation has held personal meetings with gram panchayats, resorted to advertisements, showcased model bio-villages run by MOFF in the state, etc. "Our efforts have been in vain, as we have received no response from farmers in the district. We even contacted agriculturists who are involved in organic farming, but to no avail," Boke said.
However, due to MOFF’s efforts, three bio-village projects are already underway in Buldhana, Amravati and Nanded. The gram panchayats of all the three villages have submitted a written resolution to the federation promising to co-operate and participate personally in these projects.
"Farmers feel that a good yield is impossible without chemical fertilisers and pesticides. We just want to show that this is not the case, and it is possible for a farmer to get a good yield through organic techniques. We have informed them that MOFF will not give them any money, only guidance on organic methods of farming," said Boke. "Ours is a five-year project, to be completed in phases. In the end, we have promised to help convert all these villages (Buldhana, Amravati and Nanded) into a complete self sustaining bio-village.
"There are many villages in Pune district that have the potential to take to organic farming. We are planning to push our campaigns and meetings to reach out to more people and make bio-village a reality in this area," said Dilip Deshmukh Baradkar, vice-chairman, MOFF, adding, " One of the biggest advantage of this concept is that all villagers get into the same act, thus building a sense of belonging. This is what we are witnessing in the villages where work is underway."
In the three selected villages mentioned earlier, in the first phase of the plan a socio-economic survey, selection of soil and water-conservation site, soil testing, recharging of wells, establishment of seasonal (kharif) seed, cultivation requirements and preparation of vermibeds was done. Pre-monsoon training to group leaders and volunteers was initiated to help farmers make the transition from non-organic to organic farming.
After the villages were identified, the MOFF team, in the first phase, converted 10 per cent of the village’s farmers to organic farming and subsequently, in three more phases, the remaining villagers will also take to organic techniques.
The MOFF team also conducted an economic baseline survey of the village with family details, agricultural details, available resources, livestock, irrigation facility, income source, agro-based profession, family expenditure, agricultural expenditure, finance, investment, social status, amenities, health records, addictions, observations on surroundings, problems with crop cultivation and expectations and future planning.
The farmers meet the MOFF team on a weekly basis and have learnt techniques to practice vermicomposting, prepare the soil bed and harnessing organic fertilisers and pesticides. Discussions over the ways to use waste and garbage to create bio-gas have also been conducted. Moreover, the federation is now working towards improving the bio-diversity of these villages.
The federation feels that once they make these bio-villages a success, it will be sufficient to inspire Pune farmers. "Once the project is complete here, there is no doubt that other villages will turn towards the plan. It’s a long process and takes nearly five years to complete, but will set an example not only for Pune, but for rest of the country too," Boke said.
(The Times of India, May 11, 2008)
Gurgaon to bid goodbye to clotheslines
Once considered a sign of poor neighborhoods, clotheslines are back in vogue in the US. In India, however, resident associations in Gurgaon, Haryana, are discouraging use of clotheslines. Despite being a common practice until the 1980s in the US, hanging clothes outside gradually came to be considered as a ‘blot on landscape’. Community covenants, owners’ prohibitions and zoning laws stopped people from using clotheslines. Some argue that hanging clothes can lower property value. There are, however, groups like Project Laundry List that argue for clotheslines to save energy.Drying clothes in the sun can save up to 10-25 per cent of household energy consumptionAccording to us Department of Energy 2001 data, around 60 per cent of households in the US have dryers and a dryer consumes 1150 kWh of electricity annually. Estimates show it costs an average household more than us $100 a year to use a dryer. According to reports, there were more than 88 million dryers in the country in 2005. If all Americans line-dried for just half a year, it would save 3.3 per cent of the country’s total residential output of carbon dioxide, experts say. The ‘Right to Dry’ movement is trying to pass a law in North Carolina and Vermont so that association boards will not be able to prohibit people from using clotheslines.
Meanwhile, in Gurgaon, residents’ associations deny people the right to hang clothes in lines citing “aesthetics”. Residents of Wellington Estates in Gurgaon complain that they weren’t aware of the rule till they moved to the apartments. While some families manage by hanging their clothes to dry inside the balcony, about 50 per cent of the residents at the estates have fixed metal bars to attach clotheslines outside their terrace.
DLF executives insist clothes do not hang on the façade of their buildings and that they urge potential customers to buy energy-consuming dryers. But a visit to the location proved otherwise. DLF, however, is planning service balconies now. Residents say they will either get used to the restriction or continue to use a clothesline.
(Down to Earth, 1st November,2007)
Sunderbans polluted Persistent organic pollutants found
Rising sea level and erosion aside, the Sundarbans now face a new threat. An international research team has detected polybrominated diphenyl ethers (pbde), a persistent organic pollutant, in the core sediment from seven sites in the wetland. pbdes are used as flame retardants in electrical equipments, plastics, textiles, building materials, vehicles and aircraft industries. Earlier research has established that pbdes can be persistent, bioaccumulative and toxic. They can cause liver and neuro-developmental toxicity and affect thyroid hormone levels.
“The huge discharge of municipal wastewater along with local industries’ waste may have contributed to elevated levels of pbdes. The presence of several textile plants along the upper stretch of Hooghly estuary indicates local use of pbde formulates for textile production,” says Santosh Kumar Sarkar, a co-researcher at the department of marine sciences in the Calcutta University, in a study published in the recent issue of Marine Pollution Bulletin (Vol 54, No 8).
Sarkar says, among the 12 kinds of pbdes found, the penta-bde mixture is most dangerous. “We will give due emphasis on the risks of exposure to wildlife species and humans now,” he adds. He feels the results will help monitor the wetland for more persistent organic pollutants.
(Down to Earth, 1st November,2007)
